Linking Worlds: Yggdrasil
by sara-what's-her-face
Summary: A collaboration by IluvAUs and Rhapsody Duskbane. After a misunderstanding, two girls find themselves in the most unlikely place imaginable: Sylvarant. With no combat experience, can these girls stay alive without interfering with the events of the game?
1. Chapter 1

**Linking Worlds: Yggdrasil**

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The world, characters and so on from Tales of Symphonia are owned by Namco. We only own our OCs.

This fanfic contains spoilers. Viewer discretion is advised.

The following is a fanfic collaboration between IluvAUs and Rhapsody Duskbane. This was born out of randomness, so bear with us. I (Rhapsody Duskbane) have never actually played the game before, HOWEVER, I know a large majority of the game's world and story. IluvAUs here, has beaten the game twelve times, so in the event I screw up when it's my turn to write a chapter, she'll be there to correct me before the chapter has been released. With that, on with the show!

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**Chapter 1**

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The airport in Finland was surprisingly not as busy as Evangelos thought it would be. It was rather quiet, with few people roaming around the dull gray indoor gate. Perhaps it was because it was back-to-school time in the Finnish education system; people would have already come home from their vacations and go back to work or school. Eva assumed it was just her lucky day. Who knew that going all the way to Helsinki, Finland just to see the upcoming Nightwish concert (which she had to beg her parents for days non stop for her parents to let her go until they had finally said yes) would be worth the trip? Then again, she thought, it was Nightwish; why wouldn't it be worth the trip? To Eva, going to see Nightwish was like her birthday and Christmas all wrapped up into one glorious day. After she walked down the halls up to the baggage claim and grabbed her suitcase, Eva accidentally bumped into a girl a year younger than her and ended up knocking their suitcase off of the cart they were using.

"Oh!" said a surprised Eva. "I am so sorry!"

"Oh no worries, it's fine." said the person Eva bumped into.

As the two were struggling to put the astonishingly heavy yellow suitcase back onto the cart, Eva realized something. The person she bumped into had a rather familiar voice. She sounded like a friend that she knew from Skype. She even looked the same as the said friend's profile picture. Eva shrugged it off though; such things were coincidences. But she took another glance at the second girl. Her brown eyes, her brunette hair, her voice... could it really be her, Eva wondered. The chances were awfully slim, but still. It may have been some other girl who happened to look and sound like her friend (that or a clone like in the video game Tales of the Abyss), but Evangelos wanted to be sure. She scrutinized the girl who in return blinked awkwardly.

"...What?" asked the girl. "What? Is there something on my face?"

"You look familiar," said Evangelos. "Have we met before?"

The girl tilted her head.

"No, I don't..."

The girl then looked surprised.

"Wait, I think I do know you! I recognize your voice! You wouldn't happen to be... Evangelos?"

"Amina?"

"Yeah!"

Evangelos' expression turned from suspicion to surprise.

"Oh my God, no way! What are you doing-"

It was at that moment, that Evangelos recognized a familiar logo on Amina's dark gray t-shirt. It bore vines on the left side and a logo that said "Nightwish" written on it. Eva wondered for a moment if Mina was going to the Nightwish concert that she herself was going to. She discarded the thought from her mind. Sure, Mina had an interest for Nightwish (though interest may be an understatement) but it would be too coincidental if she was really going to the same concert. Besides, just because someone is wearing a t-shirt of their favorite band, it doesn't always mean that you are going to their concert tonight. Sometimes, people wear their favorite band t-shirts just to express their love for them. In other words, it says: "I freaking love this band and I am _proud_!". But still, Eva had to ask.

"Say," she said. "You wouldn't happen to be going to the Nightwish concert, would you?"

"Of course!" replied Amina. "It took me so long to get my parents to say yes, but surprisingly, they did. Weird, huh?"

"You too?" asked Eva.

"Yeah!" nodded Mina pulling her concert ticket from her pocket.

Eva glanced back and forth at the ticket and Amina.

"This has got to be either fate or pure luck."

"No way! You mean-" asked Amina.

"Yeah."

"Man, this is so _cool_!"

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After talking for a little bit, Evangelos and Amina went to their seperate hotels (which were actually close by) and met up in front of a cafe later that day. They walked around the city and visited the landmarks and museums that were available. While doing that, they talked about what they usually talked about on Skype: music, video games, fanfiction, music videos and so on. It was nice talking about it in person for once; neither of them believed that it would never happen. But it did. When the afternoon eventually arrived, they decided to head to the concert early. The concert was located in an outside ampitheater which was a thirty minute walk away from the city. They walked (seeing as they didn't have a ride) from the city, into the beautiful green fields outside of the city. On the way, they saw something unexpected.

"Whoa!" said a surprised Amina. "Check out that tree!"

Eva saw it too and looked on in wonder. The tree was nothing like they had ever seen before. It was giant; around ten or more stories high and wide as a school bus. Its emerald green leaves blocked out the sun, but let a little of its rays shine through. It was a beautiful and grand tree that seemed to radiate a mystical aura to it. They didn't really know or care about what it was doing in the middle of nowhere instead of being in a forest. They were tired from all that walking.

"Should we rest there for a bit?" asked Eva.

"Sure, we got time." replied Mina.

The two walked over to the tree and sat on its steep, winding, enormous roots.

"This is a really nice tree." commented Amina. "We should have bought lunch and ate here."

Eva nodded and stared up at the branches, deep in thought. The two sat there in silence for a while. They had already run out of things to talk about after they started walking away from the city. Amina sighed. She struggled to start up a conversation, but couldn't think of anything. She never really was good at starting conversations. She leaned back against the tree and sighed. What a day, she thought. She was tired from all of the excitement. But they had to get going. They didn't want to be stuck in line for hours on end just to get in to the amphitheater. She stood up for a moment and stretched.

"Okay, I'm rested up." said Mina. "Let's go and grab those seats while we still can."

Before Eva could reply, Mina accidentally slipped when she took a step and hit her head on another root. Eva, worried for her friend, stood up and rushed to her side.

"Are you okay?" asked Evangelos, with concern.

"Ow... yeah, I-I think I'm fine..." muttered Amina, clutching the back of her head.

When she removed her hand from her head, Mina realized that there was a small splatter of blood on her hands. She looked behind her and saw that the root she had hit also had a small trace of blood on it.

"Oh, man, you're bleeding!" gasped Eva. "We should get you to a hospi-"

"**Who dares spill blood on this sacred tree?**" boomed an unearthly, androgynous voice.

Evangelos and Amina looked at each other blankly.

"D-did you just hear that?" asked Eva, dumbstruck.

"Yeah..." nodded Mina. "Pretty weird, huh?"

"**You, who have defiled the tree called Yggdrasil,**" the voice spoke again. "**You, who would dare battle one another on its roots... you shall be punished tenfold.**"

"W-wait a minute!" cried Mina while she looked left and right for the owner of the voice. "This is all a misunderstanding! We weren't fighting! I just slipped and hit my head!"

"Yeah!" added Eva. "We-"

At that moment, Evagelos realized something. Yggdrasil... she had heard that name before. But she wasn't thinking of the Norse mythology legend. Instead, she thought of Yggdrasil - the World Tree from Tales of Symphonia. She didn't know why she would think of that, but she did, anyway. It was then that the sky darkened to pitch black and light illuminated the tree. The two girls started to panic. The spectacle was too mystical to be real, but it was too lucid to be a dream. Then, Mina looked to Eva and noticed something; she was covered in a white aura. Before she could say something, Mina then realized that she too, was covered in that same aura. As if someone or something was using magic, the two were lifted off of the tree's roots into the air and thrown directly at the tree. And then, the world became covered in darkness.

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**Authors' notes: **There you are! The end of chapter one! Next will be IluvAUs who will write the second chapter. It will then be me, then AUs, then me again and so on.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys! This is **IluvAUs** speaking! I'm so ready to get started with my first chapter, so let's not waste any more time, shall we?

Disclaimer: My partner in crime and I claim no ownership of the characters, locations, and etcetera from Tales of Symphonia, or any meta references we decide to make. All we own are our OCs.

And now, without further ado, on with the show!

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Linking Worlds- Yggdrasil

Chapter Two- Adapting to a New World

"… up…"

"…ake up…"

"Mina, wake up!"

Amina slowly opened her eyes, looking groggily at the person looming over her. Naturally, once she recovered from the sleepy feeling, she jerked up in surprise after seeing Evangelos still leaning over her.

"You okay?" Evangelos asked, holding out a hand to help her friend up.

"Yeah, I'm fine…" Mina answered quietly. Suddenly, she noticed something different about the way Eva looked. "When did you change clothes?"

Eva looked taken aback by the random question. "Okay, that came out of nowhere. I didn't do it of my own free will, if that's what you're asking. My guess is that weird… tree spirit… thingy… changed them so I'd fit in here. Your clothes changed too."

"HUH?" Mina reacted quite loudly to this news, and looked down to scan her new threads. Her Nightwish shirt and jeans had disappeared, replaced by a white tunic bound at the waist by a length of green fabric which was tied in a simple knot on her side. Beneath the tunic, she had on what could only be described as white leggings which cut off at her knee, and on her feet were a pair of simple sandals. She didn't look like the people walking through the area, but she didn't draw many strange looks either. To be honest, her current clothes reminded her of the outfit she had worn in her old karate classes.

Eva's outfit had altered quite a bit as well. She had on pointy brown shoes, a pair of brown hose leading up to what appeared to be dark green breeches. Tucked into the breeches was a dirty white, long-sleeved shirt with a neckline that looked like it had stepped right out of a Romantic-era-set romance novel, though the majority of the shirt was covered in a dark green vest. In her left hand, she clutched a small lyre, which looked far too Grecian for the rest of the outfit.

"What's with the harp?" Mina wondered, pointing towards it.

Eva shrugged. "I don't know... But… maybe we should put some more thought into where, exactly we are, and how to get out of here."

"Yeah…" Mina agreed. "So… wait… that tree spirit thing sent us here? Hearing that voice wasn't a dream? You sure we're not just, I don't know, knocked out under the tree or something?"

"If we're dreaming, it's the same dream, and shared dreams are an exceedingly rare phenomenon." Eva replied, her logical side taking over. "This entire experience has, let's face it, been fairly impossible and miraculous from day one. So, something tells me this isn't a dream. Besides which, I've already pinched myself like five times, and it hasn't done a damn thing, so let's just try and figure out where we are."

A breeze started blowing, bringing in water vapor from off the lake, upon which the city they were currently in appeared to be built. There was a fairly large water fountain behind them, and Evangelos could see wooden bridges connecting segments of the city together, along with one close by them which connected with the other side of the mainland. The street beneath them was cobblestone, and the people were dressed in a fairly simple manner that was reminiscent of Earth of several hundred years ago. Blue eyes widened as Eva started piecing their location together. The fountain, the wooden bridges, the old style clothing, and the ever-so-familiar tower she could see far off in the distance…

"No way… I know this place… Mina, I know where we are!" Eva hissed, her voice both shocked and excited.

"Really? Where are we?" Mina wondered.

"Mina, this is Luin… This is a town from Tales of Symphonia. We. Are in. Sylvarant."

Amina's eyes went wider than Eva's. "Are you sure?"

Evangelos pointed off towards the mountains far in the distance. "Do you see that tower over there?"

Mina looked, and through the mist, she could see it rising higher and higher in the heavens, it's design ingrained into her memory from hours of surfing the Tales of Symphonia wiki page. "No way… That's… The Tower of Salvation!"

Eva nodded. "Yep. There's no doubt of it. Now that we know where we are, we should probably figure out _when_ we are. Let me see… this fountain is still in it's old style, and there are no statues of Sheena and Lloyd around, so it's not when Luin is rebuilt… We must have arrived before it gets destroyed. Which means they've probably only broken two seals."

"That's great and all, but how are we supposed to escape from here? This game kicks ass, but I don't know if we can handle it for real…" Mina whined, starting to look around nervously.

Eva shook her head. "That tree spirit wanted to punish us. Likely, it wants us dead. As unexperienced as we are with fighting, it's highly likely we could die. But if you want a way to get out of here still alive… I don't know… The only thing I can think of is, well, maybe if we get through this and beat 'the game', that will be penance- or something- and we can go home. Failing that, we could find something along the way…"

Evangelos let the thought trail off into silence. Something wasn't right here. She could sense a change in the air. Odd… could she sense mana signatures? Only those of elven blood could- she shook her head. This wasn't the time to ponder over her race. Something was very, very wrong here. And then she could smell it.

Smoke.

They had not just arrived before Luin was destroyed, they had arrived in Luin _right_ _before_ it was destroyed by Desians. Which meant that, unless the got out, fast, they would be shipped off to the Asgard Human Ranch, along with all the others. Brutal as the Desians were in-game, Eva was sure she did _not_ want to experience it firsthand.

"Mina!" she called, getting the girl's attention. "Mina, we have to leave. _Now_."

"Why?" Amina wondered, looking back at her friend. "It seems safe enough."

And then they heard the screams.

"Mina, remember what happens to Luin? This town gets completely _pulverised_ by the Desians! And everyone in town is forced to go to the human ranch. If we don't get the _hell_ out of here, we'll-!"

"Ummm… Eva? Too late to run…" Mina stated fearfully, indicating the area behind her companion.

Evangelos turned around, and found a group of about twenty Desians entering their area of town, kicking down doors and dragging people out of their houses. The bridges into and out of town were burning, cutting off any escape routes.

It was at that moment that Eva's panic instinct, which had been carefully controlled until that point, kicked in.

"Oh no oh my God oh no oh shit what the hell are we gonna do now?" she shouted, looking around desperately for a way to escape their current situation. Unfortunately, her little spazz out did nothing more than attract a group of five Desians towards her and Mina.

Mina herself was incoherent from fear, screaming words that were intelligible but amounted to basically 'we're gonna die' repeated over and over at ever higher pitches.

As the Desians got within two feet of the girls, cracking their whips against the ground, they seemed to ignore Evangelos in favor of going after Amina. The latter girl kept backing up until there was nowhere left to step but into the lake, and she was not one for drowning. She was surrounded, even if she could fight, there was no way she could take on that many Desians at once.

Though she was scared beyond her wits, Eva managed to summon the courage to speak, and charged for the group of Desians screaming, "Leave her alone!"

She leapt on top of one of the Desians, and was swiftly thrown off, soon finding a whip brandished in her face.

"You stay out of this. It's just those filthy inferior beings we're after." the Desian wielding the whip commanded. "You just be a good little girl and don't get involved, and we won't be forced to take you to the ranch as well. Lord Kvar has no patience for blood traitors."

_Blood traitors?_ Eva thought to herself. _Why would he-? What, am I a half-elf in this setting?_

The Desians turned back to face Mina, but before anyone could move, a strange, rodent-like creature with blue tails descended upon the group of sadistic half-elves. Even before she saw the purple-clad ninja appear, Eva could sense the mana of a summoner heading for a collision course with the head of the group.

Blue sheets of paper inscribed with images and Mizuhoan characters collided with each one of the Desians' heads, and they exploded, knocking all five of the Desians unconscious. Judging from the blood dripping from their helmets, the attack had killed at least two of the group.

"You okay?" the raven-haired summoner asked Mina.

Mina, completely speechless, nodded. "Thanks so much, Sh-"

Eva rushed over to her friend and clapped a hand over her mouth. "She's just overwhelmed by gratitude. This is my friend Amina. My name's Evangelos. And you are?"

Amina mentally hit herself in the forehead as the hand was removed from her mouth. She had been about to reveal information she would have had no real way of knowing, and that would have _really_ made her look suspicious.

The busty summoner looked confused for a moment, but then proceeded to say, "I'm Sheena. Now, you two really probably should get outta here before another group of Desians comes around."

Though logic and common sense agreed with Sheena, Eva couldn't stand the thought of leaving Sheena all alone to deal with the rest of the Desians, or leaving all these innocent people to die. "We want to help!"

"No offense, but you guys seemed to be pretty much dead meat before I came along. If you don't have Exspheres, I really don't think you're strong enough to fight them." Sheena stated, shrugging.

"Sheena! There's more of them coming this way!" the little creature that both girls knew to be Corrine.

"Right. Thanks, Corrine. Seriously, get out of here, you two!"

And with that, summoner and summoned creature ran for the next wave of Desians.

Mina appeared to have gotten an idea from Sheena's words, and walked to one of the Desians that was clearly dead. Eva looked at her quizzically, and Mina said, "If we have Exspheres, we can fight, right? Or, at least, try to. It's not like these guys are gonna need them where they are…"

Eva caught the implication, and knelt down to the closest Desian, carefully prying off Exsphere and Key Crest before sticking it to her own hand. Almost as soon as she equipped it, she felt a rush of power- but also an unpleasant sensation as skin melded to stone that this thing was trying to suck the life out of her. She shuddered as she stood up. "Ugh… so much as I appreciate the power boost, knowing where these things come from and how they work makes it really gross to use them…"

Amina nodded. "Yeah, but also given where they come from, I don't think the people sacrificed to make these stones would want to be described like that…"

Eva jerked suddenly, earning a surprised look from Mina. The pressure in the air had increased massively. It was like gravity was pinning her arms to her sides. She had a feeling she knew the cause, if sensing mana worked anything like spiritual pressure in the anime _Bleach_. "Mana… there's an incredible amount of mana coming this way. It's either a large group of Desians, or a really, really powerful person…"

Almost as if summoned by her words, a squadron of about seven Desians charged for the pair, weapons drawn and ready. Now was the time- the girls would be forced to fight- or die trying.

Neither of them had any real weapons, so they ran for the same whip-wielding Desian, throwing punches towards the Desian's face and gut. The punch to the face, from Eva, was easily deflected, but the punch to the gut from Mina hit- and barely fazed the opponent at all. Mina soon found herself incapacitated by a vicious kick to the shins. She would be a sitting duck for the sorcerer-class Desian who was currently charging up an ice spell, judging from the shade of the runes beneath his feet. Eva barely managed to escape a blow by the whip-wielder, and charged for the Sorcerer, thinking of only one thing she could do to fight him off.

She drew back her foot, and took advantage of his total focus on the spell to let said foot collide with the Desian's groin. A few years of soccer here and a few years of dance there had given her legs a decent amount of strength, and she was attacking the man's most vulnerable point. Never the less, she knew it would be a temporarily incapacitating blow at best, so she ran as quickly as she could for Mina.

"You okay?" she asked, helping her to her feet.

"Yeah." Amina answered. "See what kind of special techniques you can use to fight… That might be more effective than just trying to beat them in hand-to-hand combat."

"How am I supposed to know what I can do?" Evangelos asked, looking around wildly. "All I have on me aside from my fists is this lyre and- oh no. Oh God no, _no_, that stupid tree can_not_ do this to me!"

"What?" Mina asked, confused.

"I'm a _bard_!" Eva wailed, dropping to her knees. "I'm the joke character to end all joke characters! I'm freaking _Edward_, Mina!"

The girl looked over to find Mina had abandoned her place on the ground, and was running for the Desians. "Less whining, more fighting, you spoony bard!"

Eva stood back up, and looked to where Mina now fought against the Desians. She appeared to have a vague grasp of karate, and wasn't doing terribly in fighting the Desians, but she wasn't doing that much damage- merely holding them off. Eva could sense the mana in the air, she had a feeling she was of half-elven blood in this world… perhaps she could cast magic? She closed her eyes, and focused inward, feeling only heat within her body. Apparently all she could cast was Fire Ball. But, then again, that made sense, given the circumstances.

Mina saw Eva concentrating, and could vaguely see red runes forming beneath her feet. As such, she made targeting the Bowman a priority so she couldn't be interrupted. The Bowman tried to kick her, but this time, she was prepared, and grabbed the offending foot, making use of a martial arts move often seen in movies- the judo throw. Though… she didn't quite know how to do it properly, and the larger opponent did indeed fall, but right on top of her, holding her helpless, and likely fracturing a few ribs. To make matters worse, Eva's spell completed- but missed most of the Desians, hitting only one and causing only weak burns.

Eva cursed as the spell soared past the intended target- and did only minimal damage on an incidental target. _Magic is good. Magic would be very, very helpful right now… IF I CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO FREAKING AIM IT!_

Evangelos grumbled to herself. The lyre was useless to her- she didn't know how to play a stringed instrument. She sucked at hand-to-hand combat, she sucked at using magic- what the hell _could_ she do to fight? And then she remembered the one thing she had always been really good at back home on Earth- singing. She had always had a talent for singing.

So she sang.

Amplified by the Exsphere, she honestly expected something a bit more flashy- attacking music notes in mid-air, sonic waves doing damage to opponents, _something_. But all it did was what it normally did- distracted people. Made them look at her. And… made them stop what they were doing. They weren't attacking, they were just- listening. And it made them easy targets for Mina's basic punches and kicks from her few years of karate. Even when struck, the Desians didn't stop listening- it was as if they were in a trance. Though, even after a long minute of vocalising, Mina's attacks did not seem to be doing any good.

And then Eva's voice cracked, and the trance was broken. It wasn't broken immediately, there was some confusion as to what was going on- and that confusion was enough for Corrine to be able to take out the Desians harassing the two girls.

At long last, the town of Luin was clear of Desians- but also cleared of most of its citizens. There were craters on the ground, and roofs were caved in. Eva ran to meet up with Mina, and as one, the two girls collapsed on the ground with sighs of relief.

They had managed to survive their first battle.

.-.-.-.

And that's all for now! Join Dusk next time as we finally meet Lloyd and the others, and find our way into the Asgard Ranch!


End file.
